“The age of the book is not over. No way... But maybe the age of some books is over. People say to me sometimes 'Steve, are you ever going to write a straight novel, a serious novel' and by that they mean a novel about college professors who are having impotence problems or something like that. And I have to say those things just don't interest me. Why? I don't know. But it took me about twenty years to get over that question, and not be kind of ashamed about what I do, of the books I write.” PeopleKnowsWayWritingYearsKindMeanBookSometimesProblemAgeInterestNovelCollegeSeriousTwentiesAshamedBe KindProfessorsGet OverImpotenceCollege Professors Author:Stephen King
“A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.” KnowsWantWritingYoungCoursesCan DoNovelCreativeTaughtCollegeLateMarkChessNovelistsCreative WritingTypewritersNovel Writing Author:James M. Cain
“I am obsessed with story. I had a late awakening in life. In college was the first time that I understood what you could do with a story and what a good novel is - literary value and subtext and irony and everything.” FirstsStoriesValuesNovelCollegeLateUnderstoodFirst TimeAwakeningIronyObsessedSubtext Author:Shane Carruth
“A year after I'd graduated college, I went to a weeklong conference intensive in Boston, and that's when things kicked into high gear. My workshop leader was a Harvard professor and editor. At the end of the week we met one-on-one over breakfast, and she said, in essence, "Look, you're ready to turn pro." She gave me a list of literary agents to query once I had something to show them. I came home and wrote my first real novel, and the agent that sold it to Tor Books was on that list.” YearsFirstsLooksSaidBookRealEndsShowsHomeTurnsLeaderNovelWeekCollegeReadyMetsEssenceListsAgentsBreakfastEditorsProfessorsConferencesBostonHarvardGearsWorkshopsOne On OneQueriesLiterary Agents Author:Brian Hodge
“People didn't know certain things about me, which... I was out of creative writing class in school, Syracuse University; had a B.A. in English and wanted to write the great American novel but I also loved rock and roll. I was in bar bands all through college, playing fraternities and have to know all the songs in the top 10. That kind of thing.” PeopleKnowsWritingKindWantedSchoolCertainSongClassNovelCreativeRocksCollegeBandUniversityBarsRock And RollCreative WritingGreat AmericanFraternityTop 10SyracuseClasses In School Author:Lou Reed
“As a teenager, I wanted to write novels. By college, it was theater, plays, and then, shortly, it was film.” WritingPlayWantedFilmNovelCollegeTheaterTeenager Author:Richard Linklater
“I can remember as a college student writing stories and novels, some of which ended up getting published and some that didn't. It was like my head was going to burst - there were so many things I wanted to write all at once. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to come out.” WritingI CanIdeasStoriesWantedRememberNovelStudentsCollegeNeededPermissionCollege StudentsWriting Stories Author:Stephen King
“I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.” ThinkingWayWritingLittlesRealCharacterSchoolBitsActingNovelTaughtCollegeLittle BitHigh SchoolConnectionsMethodMethod ActingReal Connection Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“My writing derived from the conviction I conceived during my college years: one should lead one's life as if one were the protagonist of an epic novel, with the outcome predetermined and chapter after chapter of edifying, traumatic, and exhilarating events to be suffered through. Since the end is known in advance, one must try to experience as much as possible in the brief time allotted. Writing is a way of ensuring that you pay enough attention along the way to understand what you see.” IfsWayShouldWritingTryingYearsEndsEnoughPayAttentionKnownNovelEventsCollegeConvictionOutcomesChaptersEpicExhilaratingProtagonistsPredeterminedYear OneCollege Years Author:Jeffrey Tayler
“When I was in college I started writing prose, because a very smart professor asked me what I like to read and I said, "Novels," and she said, "You should be writing them then." Memoir never even occurred to me. I think I was afraid of nonfiction and I was afraid of navel-gazing, and of being seen.” ThinkingShouldWritingSaidNovelCollegeSmartMemoirProseProfessorsNonfictionGazingVery SmartNavelNavel Gazing Author:Melissa Febos
“Wrote my first "novel" when I was six. Studied a bit in college, but then pursued history... But when I started writing professionally, it was mostly learn as you go.” WritingFirstsBitsNovelCollegeSixPursued Author:David B. Coe
“The reality that we were growing up in was very young and vibrant, and nobody was capturing that part of India. I started to backpack after getting out of college. I hiked and did a lot of things nobody was capturing in art at all in India, so I wrote my first novel. It was a very, trippy, experience-filled novel, and it ended up doing very well in India because nobody was writing about that at that point.” WritingFirstsWellsArtRealityYoungNovelGrowing UpGrowingCollegeIndiaFilledTrippy Author:Karan Bajaj
“Early on in life I knew that I was a writer, that I just wanted to write, I love books, I love literature and after graduating college, I kind of wandered around in Europe learning languages and writing novels and never led anywhere. And then I got into like journalism in New York as a way to kind of maybe find my way into the field and it wasn't a good fit. It just wasn't right for me.” WayWritingKindBookWantedLiteratureLanguageNovelNew YorkFieldsCollegeFitEuropeJournalismMy WayGraduatesCollege GraduatesLearning LanguageLove Literature Author:Robert Greene
“I do like the idea of the novel of repressed college students being a contemporary novel of courtship! I guess what I would say to that is, we tend to think of historical periods and historical mores as ending a lot more concretely than they do. Like, in an Austen novel, there are lots of reasons - cultural, moral, religious - why the characters don't have sex during courtship. Maybe, even though those reasons have kind of expired, historically, they're still around in some sense.” ThinkingKindStillsIdeasReasonCharacterSexReligiousMoralNovelStudentsCollegePeriodsHistoricalContemporaryCourtshipRepressedAustenCollege StudentsExpired Author:Elif Batuman